Not Coming Out
by hannahncakes
Summary: Remus has second thoughts about going on a date with Sirius and tries to explain why it's a bad idea. marauder-era


Not Coming Out. 

**Disclaimer:** I am not J.K. Rowling and therefore do not own any of these characters- I merely borrow them occasionally.

**Warnings:** Slash. Boys liking boys. Don't like it, don't read it. Homophobes be gone etc.

**Author's Note: **This is my first attempt at writing any wolfstar and my first Harry Potter fic in about ten years so any feedback is gratefully received and please point out anything that seems horrifically OOC.

"Come on Moony." Sirius whined as he paced across the dorm impatiently.

"I'm not coming." Came the muffled reply from behind the curtains surrounding Remus's bed and Sirius knew, instinctively, that his friend had thrown himself face-first into his pillow. The black-haired boy stopped and sighed heavily.

"And why exactly are you not coming, dearest Moonykins?" Sirius replied in a sickly-sweet voice as he tried to keep all traces of irritation out of his voice despite the fact that they were now nearly half an hour late to possibly the most important social occasion of their entire school career.

"I just can't do this." Remus replied in a small voice.

"Can't do what?" Sirius asked quickly, all the irritation flooding out of his body as he heard how deflated his best friend sounded.

"This." Remus sighed. "I just can't go to a ball with you, not like-"

"Why the hell not?" He snapped angrily and went to wrench the curtains open but stopped himself just as his hands touched the velvety material. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. This was Remus, he reminded himself, sensitive, caring Remus. Remus wasn't like him. He wasn't able to shout people down or laugh off any insults that came his way. Remus was different; special- of course this was difficult for him.

"Because I-" Remus began again.

"No, no. I know. I'm sorry." Sirius cut in quickly. "But it'll be fine, I swear. If anyone so much as looks at us funny I'll hex them into the middle of next week."

"It's not that." Remus practically whispered and Sirius held his breath as he heard his friend turn over and sigh loudly. "It's just I'm worried-"

"It doesn't matter what any of them think about us, Moony. Anyone even half-way decent will know-" Sirius began heatedly.

"That was _not_ what I was going to say!" Remus growled in exasperation. "As you would know if you ever let me finish a damn sentence!"

"Sorry, Remus. Do carry on." Sirius muttered in embarrassment.

"Thank you." Remus sighed again and began pacing around his bed, mirroring his friend's movements from a moment before. "It's just that I can't… I mean, we can't… I can't do this. Not me and you being together, I just can't." He blurted out the last words as if it would somehow make it less painful.

"You can't…? What do you mean you… Oh this is stupid." Sirius growled as he pulled the curtains apart and strode quickly over to where Remus was pacing. "What's wrong? What is it- what have I done?"

Sirius placed his hands lightly on Remus's shoulders, his eyes scanning his friend's desperately, trying to find some grain of hope to cling on to.

"Oh don't do this." Remus groaned as he shrugged off the hesitant hands circling his shoulders and sat heavily on the bed. "You haven't done anything. Don't make this about you."

"Make this about me? Are you serious?" Sirius mimicked his friend's actions and sat heavily on the bed, staring at him intently. "I finally, _finally_, get you to agree to go out with me to the stupid ball and hopefully get you extremely smashed and drag you back to our dorm and do unspeakable things to you that I've been planning since bloody _third year_ and it was all wonderful and rosey and now suddenly you've decided that you don't want it after all and you thought it would just be a fun game to mess about with your pouf-of-a-best-friend's feelings so please tell me: if this isn't about me what the hell is it about?"

Silence fell between the two boys and Sirius breathed heavily as he clenched his fists into balls while Remus tugged at one of the lose threads hanging from the cuff of his robe and stared intently at his knees.

"It's about me," Remus began eventually. "About me and the fact that-"

"Look if you're going to break up with me at least have the decency not to use the old 'it's not you it's me' line Moony." Sirius barked bitterly.

"I'm not trying to break up with you I just-"

"You just what?"

"I just love you!" Remus shouted. "I love you, okay?"

"You… You what?" Sirius stammered.

"I am not saying it again." Remus mumbled, his eyes fixed resolutely on his knees once more.

"Right. Fine. So let me get this straight…" Sirius coughed. "You can't go out with me because you love me."

"Yeah." He mumbled.

"You realise you've lost it, right? You realise that makes even less sense than when James tried to convince-"

"No, you listen to me Sirius" Remus turned and looked at him finally. His eyes were shining with a burning desire to explain and make Sirius finally _understand._ "You are my best friend. Well you, Prongs and Wormtail are my only friends, really, but we're special. You're the best thing in my life and if we start… y'know… dating then it'll all change. You'd get bored of me or feel trapped by our relationship and we'll start arguing and end up resenting each other and break up or else we'd feel obligated to stay together and just spend each night sitting in in silence wishing we had a different life. I love you, Sirius and that's why I can't let myself be with you. The only kind of love that lasts is unfulfilled love. I can deal with forever wondering what if and dreaming about how our life could have been but I cannot, I will not, lose you."

An oppressive silence filled the room as the two friends stared at each other.

"Sirius, say something. Please." Remus begged.

"You're really not taking the whole 'it's better to have loved and lost' advice into account then?" He joked in what he hoped was an off-hand voice but merely sounded like someone trying not to let a sob break into their throat.

"Sirius please…"

"If you follow that with 'be serious' you know I'm not going to be able to resist making a joke." He laughed shakily.

"So are we, I mean, are we okay?" Remus asked hesitantly. His hand instinctively went to cover the dark-haired boy's hand before he pulled it back.

"We're fine. We'll always be fine." Sirius smiled bravely. "But…."

"Yes?" Remus asked quickly as his eyes shone with hope- maybe Sirius would fight for him; maybe they were something worth fighting for.

"Well I could just think of a counter-argument. One that would urm… highlight the positive points of us being together."

"Bloody hell Padfoot, you really have been spending too much time with me." Remus laughed despite himself. "Do you need to go to the library to reference this counter-argument?"

"No. Shut up." Sirius blushed slightly.

"Sorry. Please carry on." Remus smiled encouragingly.

"Well the thing is, y'know, there's a war on. Or a war just about to start. And we're leaving school soon and we're going to have to fight." He swallowed hard but carried on, resolved. "It's all really messed up and we're going to be right in the middle of it, So we could die any day. Basically what I'm saying is we will probably die before we have time to royally fuck our friendship up."

Sirius bit his lip as he waited for Remus's reaction. There was a few seconds where the other boy just stared at him like he was from another planet but then burst out laughing. Then suddenly Sirius was laughing too because this was all so bloody ridiculous and they were both laughing and clutching at each other and gasping for breath as they fell back onto the bed.

"Is that your version of carpe diem?" Remus chuckled eventually when he regained the power of speech.

"My version of what?" Sirius grinned. He hadn't been listening because all of his brain space had been occupied by thoughts of how he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing whatever it took to make Moony laugh like a maniac and lie on a bed with him.

"We really shouldn't do this." Remus whispered as he looked at Sirius sprawled out on his bed- all long hair and gangly limbs.

"Do what?" Sirius whispered as he reached over and brushed Remus's hair out of his eyes. "We're not doing anything."

"No but any second now you'll reach over and kiss me and then I won't be able to argue with myself any more and then-"

"And then we'll live happily ever after." Sirius smirked as he closed the gap between them. He lay nose to nose with Remus, so close their lips almost touched.

"Nobody lives happily ever after."

"In that case we should probably try to just be happy right now." Sirius whispered as his fingers ran gently down the other boy's arm causing tingles to flood through his body.

"Your logic, as always, is flawless my friend." Remus smiled. Then he took a deep breath and kissed him. He'd worry about what came after later.

**Review? Reviews are brilliant!**


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